But at least they didn't offer an overnight stay in the Lincoln bedroom!

GOP Attorneys General Asked For Corporate Contributions By R. Jeffrey Smith and Tania Branigan Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, July 17, 2003; Page A01 Republican state attorneys general in at least six states telephoned corporations or trade groups subject to lawsuits or regulations by their state governments to solicit hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions, according to internal fundraising documents obtained by The Washington Post. One of the documents mentions potential state actions against health maintenance organizations and suggests the attorneys general should "start targeting the HMO's" for fundraising. It also cites a news article about consolidation and regulation of insurance firms and states that "this would be a natural area for us to focus on raising money."

Never Cry Wolfowitz

Wolfowitz committee instructed White House to use Iraq/uranium reference in State of the Union speech By Jason Leopold Online Journal Assistant Editor WASHINGTON, July 16, 2003—A Pentagon committee led by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, advised George W. Bush to include a reference in his January State of the Union address about Iraq trying to purchase 500 tons of uranium from Niger to bolster the case for war in Iraq, despite the fact that the CIA warned Wolfowitz's committee that the information was unreliable, according to a CIA intelligence official and four members of the Senate's intelligence committee who have been investigating the issue. The senators and the CIA official said they could be forced out of government and brought up on criminal charges for leaking the information to this reporter and as a result requested anonymity. The senators said they plan to question CIA Director George Tenet in a closed-door hearing to find out whether Wolfowitz and members of a committee he headed misled Bush and if the Bush knew about the erroneous information prior to his State of the Union address. Spokespeople for Wolfowitz and Tenet vehemently denied the accusations. Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director, would not return repeated calls for comment. The revelations by the CIA official and the senators, if true, would prove that Tenet, who last week said he erred by allowing the uranium reference to be included in the State of the Union address, took the blame for an intelligence failure that he was not responsible for. The lawmakers said it could also lead to a widespread probe of prewar intelligence. ...

Five different anonymous sources for this particular story. Certainly better sourcing then is standard for journalism today.

Did the Bush administration try to intimidate Ambassador Wilson?

David Corn asks the question.

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others? It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted. ... Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation. Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech." So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it. ... This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. ... So where's the investigation? Remember Filegate--and the Republican charge that the Clinton White House was using privileged information against its political foes? In this instance, it appears possible--perhaps likely--that Bush administration officials gathered material on Wilson and his family and then revealed classified information to lash out at him, and in doing so compromised national security. ... "Stories like this," Wilson says, "are not intended to intimidate me, since I've already told my story. But it's pretty clear it is intended to intimidate others who might come forward. You need only look at the stories of intelligence analysts who say they have been pressured. They may have kids in college, they may be vulnerable to these types of smears." Will there be any inquiry? Journalists who write about national security matters (as I often do) tend not to big fans of pursuing government officials who leak classified information. But since Bush administration officials are so devoted to protecting government secrets--such as the identity of the energy lobbyists with whom the vice president meets--one might (theoretically) expect them to be appalled by the prospect that classified information was disclosed and national security harmed for the purposes of mounting a political hit job. Yet two days after the Novak column's appearance, there has not been any public comment from the White House or any other public reverberation. The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.

Though shalt not cast aspertions upon a Bush lest though wouldst suffer the consequences. So let it be written. So let it be done.

Google News Democratic Poll for 7/16/2003

		This Week (7/10)			Last Week (7/16)
1	John Kerry	5580	20.1%	+1.7	1	3590	18.4%
2	Howard Dean	4840	17.4%	-0.3	2	3450	17.7%
3	Bob Graham	3940	14.2%	+0.5	3	2670	13.7%
4	John Edwards	3050	11.0%	-2.2	4	2570	13.2%
5	Dennis Kucinich	2630	9.5%	+0.3	5	1780	9.1%
6	Joe Lieberman	2500	9.0%	+0.1	7	1740	8.9%
7	Dick Gephardt	2200	5.8%	-3.1	6	1750	9.0%
8	Al Sharpton	1950	7.0%	+0.1	8	1340	6.9%
9	Carol Moseley Braun	1110	4.0%	+0.8	9	629	3.2%

John Kerry has had a very good week as far as media exposure goes. He has done a very good job of putting himself out in front in his criticism of Bush's false SOTU speech. Several other candidates, including Dean and Graham, have been critical as well, but they have not been as successful in turning that into media coverage.

John Edwards and Dick Gephardt are the two big losers this week. The media oxygen was sucked up by Kerry, Dean and Graham on the SOTU scandal leaving them with not much else to talk about. Right now Kerry seems to be the best poised of the pro-war Democrats to turn that stance to his favor as the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate.

(Methodology: All numbers are taken from the hit counts when searching on the Google News Service for news stories containing each candidate's name. Click on each name to rerun the search. You will likely get different results as the numbers are constantly changing. I make absolutely no claim that these numbers have any real meaning.)

Insiders for Dean

Dean has the image of being the outsider who has nothing but bad things to say about those inside the beltway. So you would think that many of the latter would be resentful of Dean's attacks and actively work against him. No doubt many do, especially those who have already signed on to the campaigns of Dean's opponents. But Tom Curry of MSNBC has discovered something amazing: some DC insiders like Dean and wouldn't mind if he gets the nomination. Some are even hoping for it.

Dean gets help from D.C. insiders Insurgent presidential contender is building bridges to the inside-the-Beltway crowd By Tom Curry MSNBC WASHINGTON, July 15 — Maverick Howard Dean, the outside-the-Beltway presidential contender who has expressed scorn for congressional efforts such as a patients’ bill of rights, is getting help from a coterie of Washington insiders, from congressional staffers to veteran lobbyists. On Tuesday Dean continues his wooing of congressional Democrats, meeting with the caucus of 36 fiscally conservative House Democrats known as the Blue Dogs. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, has never served in Congress and plays the role of the acerbic outsider, slamming congressional Democrats, such as his rivals for nomination, Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, for not standing up to Bush on Iraq. “It is a bit of a club down there,” Dean said last month. “The Democratic Party, all the candidates from Washington, they all know each other, they all move in the same circles, and what I’m doing is breaking into the country club.” When Dean first began running for the nomination last fall, in an interview with MSNBC.com he had not heard of the Joint Committee on Taxation, the congressional panel that does the official estimates of the fiscal effects of tax legislation. He does not speak in the Capitol Hill lingo of “tabling the amendment” and “supplemental appropriations.” INSIDERS FOR DEAN But as improbable as it would have seemed three months ago, some Capitol Hill political realists have now accepted — even embraced — the notion that Dean will end up as the Democratic nominee. “I want to beat Bush and I think Dean is the best guy to do that,” said a senior Senate Democratic staffer, who spoke to MSNBC.com on condition that he not be named. “I’m convinced he’s going to win the nomination. He has won ‘the inspiration primary’ and he won the fund-raising primary,” leading all Democratic contenders with $7.5 million raised in the second quarter. This Senate staffer, who has written policy memos for the Dean campaign, said, “my feeling is that Dean is doing a masterful job of capturing the progressive supporters. But he can’t win if he is seen as the captive of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. He has to be seen as someone who is thoughtful, not as a captive. He has to take one or two moderate or conservative positions that would even out his image. Dean can take progressive positions as long as he can balance it.” The Senate staffer said, “He’s perceived to be more liberal than he is. He needs to address that perception.”

$400 billion...but who's counting?

#1 Priority for Republicans

Paul Krugman is back, thank God!

So who will be held accountable? Mr. Tenet betrayed his office by tailoring statements to reflect the interests of his political masters, rather than the assessments of his staff — but that's not why he may soon be fired. Yesterday USA Today reported that "some in the Bush administration are arguing privately for a C.I.A. director who will be unquestioningly loyal to the White House as committees demand documents and call witnesses." Not that the committees are likely to press very hard: Sen. Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems more concerned about protecting his party's leader than protecting the country. "What concerns me most," he says, is "what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the president." In short, those who politicized intelligence in order to lead us into war, at the expense of national security, hope to cover their tracks by corrupting the system even further.

So is that the priority for Republicans now? Is anyone going to come right out and ask the GOP which is more important? We're waiting.

Telling a story

Dean is the next McGovern! No wait! Dean is the next Mondale! No wait! Dean is the next ... Napster?!?!?! C'mon people! Can't you just write about a phenomena without trying to pigeonhole it into a pre-defined storyline? Maybe, just maybe, Dean is just Dean.